Freeing the Past
by Snowdrop Pax
Summary: Haruka's past before the swim club. Sequel coming up. WARNING: Attempted Suicide! Hinted Abuse and abandonment!


Haruka Nanase was born swimming.

He wasn't born in a hospital bed or even in his own home like most babies, he was delivered in a pool.

He was born three weeks early it was unexpected like most early births, but his mother had gone swimming that day, and when her water broke she couldn't tell, she was underwater. So as such she didn't realize she when into labor until he was already halfway out. She said afterwards that he just couldn't wait till the hospital to be properly delivered, so he came out underwater.

A miracle, that's what they called it, that he survived he did breathe chlorine into his tiny lungs and that he wasn't blind from the chlorine in his sensitive eyes, he had to stay at the hospital for five weeks before it was deemed he could leave safely.

His mother told him that whenever they tried to bathe him he would stick his head underwater and not come up until they forced him. She said he would throw a fit after the would remove him from the water. She never understood why, she said that if anything he should be scared of it, coming into the world with the chlorine like that. but he did, he was created in water, and spent nine months in it, then his first experience with the outside world wasn't the stale air and cold tools of a delivery room, it was the warm water, swaddling him like a blanket. To him the water was his true home.

When he was three months old, his father signed him up for a baby swimming class since he loved the water so much. At first all he did was float, but slowly he learnt to dog paddle, then swim underwater. He couldn't remember, but he knew that that was the best exprerence in his life.

When he entered elementary school he was bullied for his name, he was called a girl, he became much more quiet because of this, he stopped being so loud and out going, speaking only when spoken too. He eventually had enough and just told everyone to call him Haru.

He was joyous when he found out his elementary school had a swim team, he joined right away. He learnt how to swim in fancy stokes, but he didn't like how they felt, they made him feel like it was just about winning, swimming free felt just right, the water moved against him in a rhythm that he hoped would never end. He became a master at swimming due to that. That was when he decided we wouldn't swim any other way.

He met his best friends in that swim club, Makoto Tachibana, Nagisa Hazuki, and later Rin Matsuoka. They were the only ones that didn't make fun of his name, having girly names themselves.

When Rin left for Austrailia he was heartbroken, Rin was the only one who had come close to beating him, and so he had a fair amout of respect for him. But that all disappeared when he made his annoucment. Honestly, how could anyone only swim because they wanted to win? Didn't they truly appreciate the beauty of it? The feel of the water aginst them? The clean feeling you couldn't get on the poulouted land? The color and liveliness of the ocean fish and coral? Why didn't they understand it?

He became more isolated that day, no one truly understood him, or his love for water. But his isolation drove Makoto to understand him more. He never fully succeeded in understanding his love for water, but he did learn to read him he was the only one who could see the faintist change in him, he could read his emotions. He became the one he would go to for anything. He became the closest thing to a sibling he had.

Right before they whent to middle school, Nagisa moved away, going to a different school. He didn't want to, but they were forced to say their goodbyes and part.

At thirteen his father had to go to Arizona for work, and his mother desided to study abrod in America. He begged and pleaded for days hoping to convincing them to let him stay. The didn't go for it. Arizona didn't have ANY water. Sure there were pools but it wasn't the name without Makoto and Nagisa. His parents finally agreed to let him stay by himself in Japan after he tried to drown himself in a bathtub.

Makoto was happy to see him of course, the first month he was back he came to his house everyday at the same time, he claimed it was to make sure he was ready for school and not in the tub. But he really came to make sure he was really there. He never dropped the habit. Doing this caused Haru to become more outgoing, he was still quiet but he added his opinion in conversations, and used bolder words.

They stopped swimming as a team after elementary school, but Makoto would make it a point every Saturday to take him to a pool or the beach. He made the mistake of taking him to aquarim once, they were kicked out after he tried swimming with dolphins, that was how he got the nickname 'the Dolphin' and how Makoto learnt to grab him when they were near water. Makoto learnt the hard way that all that time in Arizona had him 'water deprived' and he would try to strip and dive into any water. Fountians, large fishtanks, you name it. That was when he started wearing his swimsuit in place of his boxers, and that was also the time he started collecting jammers.

It was the summer after middle school he got the call from his dad saying that he and his mother were getting divorced. His dad exlplaned that it wasn't his fault, it was just that his mother was different after she returned from her studies, she became more strict and stuck up saying 'If you don't win, then whats the point?'. He explaned that his mother's new attitude wasn't the only reason for their divorce. That while his mother was studying he fell in love with someone else. And his father also told him that not to belive everthing his mother said when she called him, because it most likely wasn't the full truth. Haru calmly explaned to his dad that his mother hadn't made any form on contact with him since he boarded the plane to return to Japan two years ago.

His father was shocked to say the least, but told Haru he could call Him and his new wife, Lillith, when ever he felt like it. He accepted the offer, but never took him up on it. He hadn't seen his dad in a little over two years, and he knew it would be akward to talk to him like that and rekindle their faded relationship. So his calls to His Father and Lillith where mostly Holiday greetings and Happy Birthday's, each trying to be considerate of the others culture, with updates on their separate lifes. He learnt that Lillith had a five year old girl named Chloe from a previous marriage, and they had and a baby girl named Elizabeth together, and they had another on the way.

The Holiday calls slowly faded out into just a quick Merry Christmas, or a Happy White Day until they faded out all together, his father had a new family after all.

His mother never did try to contact him. Haru figured that she was just ashamed of his failed suicide attempt and forgot about him. He didn't care.

His second year of High school Nagisa moved back into town and proposed the idea of a swim club. How preposterous. It would never work...

* * *

 **Just a small thing I did detailing Haru's past before we meet him in Free!, the rest is in the show. The sequal is coming soon!**


End file.
